Former Brunswick Town Councilor Christopher Watkinson pleaded not guilty Wednesday morning to charges of possessing sexually explicit images of a minor.
Wednesday’s hearing marked Watkinson’s first court appearance since a Cumberland County grand jury indicted him in November on one charge of possession of sexually explicit material of a minor under 12, a Class C felony, and one charge of possession of sexually explicit material, a Class D misdemeanor.
“We’ve been disappointed with how the state of Maine has handled this from jump street,” defense attorney William Bly said after the hearing. “This is not a case that should have been prosecuted. I think it was the wrong call.”
Previously unrevealed details of the charges against Watkinson emerged when Bly and Androscoggin County Assistant District Attorney Nate Walsh argued over the Bowdoin College employee’s motion to amend the terms of his bail.
According to Bly, Watkinson clicked on a link in June 2021 that appeared unrelated to child pornography. When the link opened, sexually explicit images of a young girl appeared, Bly said. Watkinson was “shocked,” according to his attorney, and downloaded and emailed three images to himself with the intention of turning them over to the police.
A month later, after Yahoo reported the images to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit executed a search warrant looking for evidence of child pornography and confiscated 21 electronic devices and thumb drives from Watkinson’s home. Those included devices that belonged to Watkinson’s family members.
The courts have not released an affidavit or any official records detailing the investigation. The District Attorney’s Office declined to expand on what was said in court Wednesday.
Watkinson had not turned over the images as he initially intended because his father-in-law, who lives with the defendant’s family, had suffered a serious heart attack shortly after Watkinson accessed them, according to Bly.
“Suddenly, this wasn’t such a pressing issue to reach out to law enforcement, because he’s at the hospital trying to support his father-in-law and his wife,” Bly said. “This got basically pushed to the back burner and forgotten.”
Police found no additional explicit images, evidence of searches for child pornography or wiping software that could be used to erase records of such searches on any of the confiscated devices, Bly said. He stressed Watkinson had fully cooperated with law enforcement throughout the investigation.
He said he was “shocked” when a grand jury returned an indictment in November.
Since then, Watkinson has not been permitted unsupervised contact with children under the age of 18 other than his own children, a bail condition he asked to be removed Wednesday.
Judge Paul A. Fritzsche appeared sympathetic to the defense’s argument, noting it was unusual to see a child pornography case that involves only three images, as opposed to hundreds or thousands.
“It’s like other addictions, alcohol and drugs; they do it full force,” he said. “To find one image — it’s not unheard of, but it’s an aberration.”
Walsh opposed Watkinson’s motion to ease bail conditions. The Androscoggin County prosecutor, who took over the case because Cumberland County District Attorney and former Brunswick Town Councilor Jackie Sartoris knows Watkinson personally, said the defendant could have saved additional explicit images to cloud-based servers rather than computer hard drives.
Bly later called the argument “absurd” and “reckless.”
Fritzsche said he agreed the state’s evidence was “minimal” and chose to partially grant Watkinson’s motion, allowing him contact with children age 10 and older, the age of his youngest kids.
Bly asked Brunswick residents to delay judgment on his client until the case is resolved.
“People still don’t know the full story and won’t know the full story until or unless this case has to go to trial,” he said. “We’re confident in Chris’ innocence.”
The District Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
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